But what I do that defines Me!
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Rachel Dawes has just discovered Bruce Wayne's secret life as the vigilante Batman, and she feels ashamed when she is reminded about what she said to him during their past meeting... and realises Bruce is the mask.


Disclaimer - I don't own Batman.

Please let me know what you think.

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But what I do that defines Me!

Rachel Dawes was frightened as she felt herself literally being forced back into a corner of the dark alley - much like the one Thomas and Martha Wayne had been murdered in all those years, but she pushed thought aside; it was because Bruce had come back to the city after doing God knew what where the city collapsed all around her, as she kept the little boy in the red t-shirt and Victor Zsaz who was still clad in his orange prison smock while he crept up to them holding a knife close to her, but he was moving around, gibbering in panic, behind him were a number of other inmates from Arkham. Rachel couldn't get a good look at them, they were too far away and it was too dark and there were clouds of that fucking gas everywhere but she didn't think she needed to guess what was on their minds and why they were advancing on her and the little boy.

Rachel had never really been particularly religious, but looking at Zsaz now, a psychotic murderer whom she had dealt with in the past, and would like to get rid of especially now he was creeping up on her and a child, but with the dim lighting and the thick fog of the hallucinogenic gas she herself had been exposed to when she had been at Arkham, Zsaz looked particularly demonic especially with his goatee beard (thinking about Arkham made her think once more about the so-called 'Scarecrow', and how she'd been more than happy to taser him in the face underneath that ridiculous burlap mask of his, and she hoped if Crane ever came near her again he was ready for her to take the law into her own hands, give him something to be afraid of instead of constantly preaching about it).

As they got closer to her and the boy, Rachel pulled the child over to her and pushed her behind her.

"T-the Batman will save us," the boy babbled in terror, "he'll come."

Rachel barely heard the boy as she lifted the gun she'd pulled from the holster of the dead cop on the ground, and she pointed it straight at Zsaz's head, knowing at this range she would put the bullet straight into his head which wouldn't be a big loss considering how many people he'd murdered.

She cocked the gun as she pointed it at Zsaz, but the sound didn't faze the killer as he approached, waving the knife tauntingly at her and the boy, but while she was frightened of him and what he was probably going to do, Rachel struggled to be as brave as she could be; the gun gave her some reassurance, but Rachel remembered her anger towards Bruce when she'd discovered he was carrying that gun during the trial of Joe Chill.

_The wheel turns, doesn't it Bruce?_ She thought to herself with dark irony.

She pulled the boy close to her chest - she wondered idly if maybe shooting herself and the boy would be merciful considering the hideous things Zsaz and his friends would likely do to them, but she quickly shoved that thought aside in the hope it wouldn't come to that, but if they got too close and she ran out of bullets, she wouldn't know what to do - she felt him turn his head in her chest so he couldn't watch what was about to happen.

"He'll come," he repeated in a whisper.

Rachel didn't comment on the subject of Batman. While the caped and masked vigilante was scary, yeah, and he was good, she couldn't see how he could save them right now. "Don't peek," she whispered back as she held the boy to her chest, her finger right on the trigger…

What happened next Rachel would never be entirely clear of - when she looked back on the moment again in the future, she would assume Batman had punched or shoved Victor Zsaz away fast and then grabbed onto her; all she could see was a black blur before she and the boy found themselves being lifted up into the air, with the sound of an electrical whirring in her ears before the Batman took them to the very top of the building, his cape flapping in the gentle breeze.

The boy let go of her and she bent down to examine his face, her hands running over his flaxen hair and his cheeks, noting the terror in his eyes - she could kill Crane for making that disgusting hallucinogenic - which made him look around wildly, but the look of worship in his face as he looked at the tall vigilante standing over them both, hero worship warring with the terror. The boy looked Rachel in the eyes.

"I told you he'd come," he whispered.

Rachel looked up into Batman's eyes. The vigilante was so close she could see his eyes, and she realised they looked incredibly familiar to her….

As if realising she knew something about him (Rachel knew it wasn't right, but she couldn't shake that feeling off), Batman turned and went to the edge of the roof and he lightly jumped on to it, crouching down like a cat.

"Wait," she called, half expecting the Batman to just ignore her plea since he had saved her life, but she was pleased when the vigilante didn't move but turned his head slightly so he could listen to her. "You could die."

Batman didn't say a word, he just nodded slightly; it was such a subtle nod Rachel almost missed it, and for a moment she wondered why he didn't say anything but then she heard the boy's panting and she guessed Batman was trying to spare the boy's feelings but she couldn't be sure there either; the vigilante was enigmatic, who knew what was going on inside his mind?

"At least tell me your name," she went on, though she wondered if she was wasting her time there asking him who he was.

The Batman turned his upper body around so he was facing her. For a moment he was silent as he stared at Rachel for a long moment, and she wondered what was going through his mind.

"It's not who I am underneath," the voice that came from Batman's mouth wasn't entirely the low, rumbling growl she'd come to associate with him, but it wasn't quite a normal regular voice either, but something in-between; but the voice was irrelevant to Rachel since those words stunned her to the core, "but what I do, that defines me."

"Bruce?" Rachel whispered, but before she could say anything else, Batman - Bruce, she corrected herself - turned around and jumped off of the roof. Rachel, concerned for her childhood friend, immediately looked over the edge…. but she saw Bruce's cape suddenly become rigid and strong enough before it resembled a sail and he glided away to wherever it was he was going, and her eyes followed the black form of Batman, and Rachel was not particularly certain but she was sure the cries coming from the streets below Batman were growing in intensity but she was too far away.

She wouldn't be surprised; she remembered how terrified she had been to see the demonic costume he wore underneath that monorail station when Falcone's men had tried to kill her, and considering how hard he had hit the underworld until now they were frightened to do anything to garner his attention, and since he had gone for Falcone, many people were terrified of what Batman could do instead of just being afraid of what he looked like with that mask.

So Batman was, in fact, Bruce Wayne. It was virtually unbelievable to her, but the way he had said those words to her, those same words she had said to him when she had met him again after so many years. Oh, she had been so stupid to think Bruce had changed so much in his personality, going from an adventurous kid to an angry young man who was furious with the injustices in a city where the laws of justice had been twisted and warped until criminals could just walk out of police stations as if nothing had happened while the corrupt judges and police officers patted themselves on the backs, only for him to change once more into a seemingly careless young man who had changed so much into someone who looked like Bruce Wayne, sounded like him, but wasn't him.

And I had been so disappointed with him, she thought to herself with a mental kick as she remembered how she had seen him with those women, acting like the fool instead of the serious guy she remembered growing up. At the same time, Bruce had returned to the city, it wasn't long before Batman had appeared on the scene. Alright, there were hundreds of people coming in and out of Gotham every day, and any of them could have been Batman instead of Bruce Wayne.

What I do that defines me….

Rachel closed her eyes, the quote floating around in her mind as she thought of how Bruce Wayne was living his life, what he had chosen to be.

Bruce was not a childish fop like everyone believed him to be, he was an actor. Strangely, Batman was the real Bruce Wayne, and Bruce was, in fact, the mask.

_God, what a mess!_ She thought to herself.

Rachel had always been frightened about Bruce after the deaths of his parents, but she had never really been able to keep up with his mood swings after it happened; poor thing, he had been so traumatised by everything that had happened, and she had on many occasions wondered what was going on inside his mind, but Bruce had either been closed off, angry, sad and lost, or Alfred had chased her off apologetically. But after a time Rachel had very nearly lost it in disgust towards Bruce when she'd found out he had been planning on murdering Chill without a thought about what he was going to do next.

But Batman….!

That mess at the court was the last time she saw Bruce again. She had gone back to her own life, too angry to really care about him because she had been disgusted he would resort to murder since it wouldn't get his parents back and they would have been disgusted with him as well, though why Bruce had not realised that she didn't know. It was academic, anyway.

When she had calmed down, she had tried to get into touch with Bruce, talk to him and maybe see a movie or something? It had been a shock when Alfred rang her instead, worried for Bruce and begging to know where he was, but she hadn't known. Bruce Wayne had just disappeared and even now she didn't know what he had been doing; oh, she knew he had been training to become Batman, but the type of training, where he had gone to get it…. Rachel didn't know.

Now it all made sense to her, when he had come back to Gotham and went out as Batman to clean up the city, but Rachel could now see how the person who had been fooling around for the last few weeks was the mask and the costume Bruce wore was her old friend's true form.

_Oh, Bruce,_ she thought to herself sadly.


End file.
